ekly papers of Glendale, Bolivar,
Hillsboro, and Providence, and I hope there will not be so many cases of
heart-failure from rage that the gloom of many funerals will put out the
light of the rally. I hope no man will beat any woman in the Harpeth
Valley for it, and if he does, I hope he will do it so neither Jane nor
I will hear of it.

It was Aunt Augusta who thought up the insulting and incendiary plan of
having the rally as an offering of hospitality from the League, and I
hope if Uncle Peter is going to die over it he will not have the final
explosion in my presence.

Privately I spent a dollar and a half sending a night-letter to Richard
all about it and asking him if the Commissioners would be willing to
stand for this feminist plank in the barbecue deal. He had sent me the
nicest letter of acceptance from the Board when I had written the
invitation to them through him, as coming from the perfectly ladylike
feminine population of Glendale, and I didn't like to get them into a
woman-whirlwind without their own consent. I paid the boy at the
telegraph office five dollars not to talk about the matter to a human
soul, and threatened to have him dismissed if he did, so the bomb-shell
was kept in until this afternoon.

Richard replied to the telegram with characteristic directness:

Delighted to be in at the fight. Seven of us rabid suffragists, two
on the fence, and a half roast pig will convert the other. Found no
answer to my question in letter of last Tuesday. Must!

RICHARD.

It was nice of Jane to write out and get ready her bomb-shell and then
go off with Polk, so as not to see it explode. But I'm glad she did.
However, I did advise her to take a copy of it along with the reels and
the lunch-basket to read to him, as a starter of their day to be
devoted to the establishment of a perfect friendship between them.

Polk didn't look at me even once as I helped pack them and their traps
into his Hupp, but Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like Polk in
his white flannels, and he and Jane made a picture of perfectly blended
tailored smartness as they got ready for the break-away.

There are some men that acquire feminine obligations as rough cheviot
does lint and Henrietta is one of Polk's when it comes to the fishing
days. He takes her so often that she thinks she owns him and all the
trout in Little Harpeth, and she landed in the midst of the picnic with
her fighting clothes on.